Saturday, August 1, 2009

And hot dang it, we've been sweltering here. Hence my inability to type. Heat, coupled with extreme laziness, has a profound effect on my blogging finger (I never learned to type properly so my pointer digit figures prominently in the formation of words from my keyboard). Poor blogging finger. It does not like 107 degrees in Oregon. I had to bathe it in ice and set in on the A/C for days at a time. As one of few people I know in Portland whose apartment blessedly possesses aircon—central aircon no less—the Crabhome became of late the locus of much neighborly cocktail activity, all and sundry from our street crowding into our pad to cool down. It was quite fun.

In other similarly earthshaking Crabby news, Crabgrandma has been here for two weeks attending to the small one, who at almost 5 is going through one of those stages of insisting on wearing winter clothes in summer, in a heat wave, no less. She digs them out from the basement, saying, "I think these [corduroy] pants are right for today" and "Please can you button this [thick wool sweater]." And Crabgrandma deals with the tedium of challenging and changing and generally engaging the tot in all her contrariness.

Me, I lie on the floor plotting future vacations to Sicily, or sit beneath our one shady tree with a gin and tonic, pondering the plural of gin and tonic. That's gins and tonic.

In Canberra it's not hot, rather a tad chilly going down to -2 degrees Celsius this evening (not sure what that is in Farenheit). That's cold enough to freeze some ice for a GnT and it's really never too cold to drink one is it? Now you have me craving a GnT and I don't have any in the house, I'll have to settle for a nice Australian Red. Hope the heat lets up for you soon and heads on down to Oz.

TP - Canberra is indeed "well... cold" say no more.TP and CM is the CT, where the G&T will be suiped, Cape Town. If it is I wish I could join you. The last really good G&T session I had was in Umfolozi Game Park in South Africa. There's something special about drinking a colonial drink in the colonies to the distant roar of lions.

I'm just enjoying a quiet time at home. I wish you well in all your endeavors. Keep up the good work Mom!By the way, there's a new social networking site dedicated to parents and kids, it's called Bluepixo.com - it's a place for Moms, Dads, and Kids! Now, there’s even a chance to win a free iPod Nano!. It would be so nice of you to join our parents’ forums and polls. Thanks a lot and have a great day!

TP, the crab mommy writing petition sounds good. A friend of mine who lives in a tent in Botswana put me onto the blog and I love it. My friends blog is http://moremibushbabies.blogspot.com and web site http://www.earth-touch.com/if you are into Africa the site is great. I am with you G&T's are rather medicinal I prefer Black Label or Amstel.Have a ball in Africa, I am turning green with envy. I would love to visit SA my whole family are there last visit was 2 years ago now, way too long.

Has no one else had this niggle to the point where they had to look it up? Dear Anon was (sort of) incorrect; a palindrome is word, phrase or number forward/backward. An anagram is when you mix up the letters in a word to create a new word.

So, you were indeed correct. And my faith in the universe is restored.

FFG,Dang, you clever. Clever you, dang! Thanks for redeeming me. Or trying to. In truth I don't think the phrase itself can be called a palindrome, but it sho' aint an anagram. You was right. We is all stupid up here. Summer brain. Addled. Confuzzed. I might add if you look up palindrome in Wikipedia it says a bunch of things about crabs. Will perhaps get up a post about it next...stay tuned...xo

Crabmommy Manifesto

On this website I will never:*speak of the enchanting constant joy and transformative wonderment of motherhood*dispense little nuggets about what my child has taught me*tell any mom to stop and smell the diapers "because it all goes by in the blink of an eye"*make jokes about bowel movements and baby body fluids (because it's not my thing and it can be found abundantly elsewhere)*use the word "miracle"*count my blessings*chart my child's developmental milestones*seem to be in a good or grateful mood*be mean about my friends or family because they'll get me back

On this website I will:*laugh at myself*laugh at others*laugh at rural momming*laugh at urban momming*mock the Stokke highchair*covet the Stokke highchair

Disclaimer:Let me say once for the record: like any mother I adore my own tot, think she is more brilliant, beautiful and gifted than yours, but this goes without saying. So I'm not going to say it (again). Rather, I vow to use my precious bloody-little time to talk about the more wretched and tricky aspects of momhood, pausing often to drown myself in a vat of self-pity and whining. Welcome!

About Me

Originally South African, then was an urban mommy (NYC), then hubby and I decided NYC sucks unless one is awash in cash...so we decamped to the smalltown cowboy west, to a town of many hyperfit, cheery "Look On the Bright Side" moms. Too much cheeriness forced us north and west and urban and rainy. I am happier in gloom. Crabmommy is mom to one child and one only, and by God it's going to stay that way. Recent musings in a variety of fancy literary magazines that nobody reads SO THEN I GOT A REAL WRITING JOB with Cookie magazine online, where I have a bloglet about momming. (Like I don't plug that one enough. Sheesh.)
email: crabmommy [then u make the at sign] gmail [dot] com